See http://www.altera.com/products/...search.jsp

They have the option of "try it before you buy it" but they're not free.

Are you sure it's ALTERA?

XILINX has some on that basis, too, but the doc's not as complete as one might like. Implementaitng one of these just to "see how well it works" is a bit much work for someone else's product.

Actel claims to have a free 1-clocker 8051 core. I haven't looked it over yet, but surely will as time allows. A lot depends on how modifiable its peripherals are, though. If it's at all flexible, in that one can modify the "standard" peripherals, it may be of interest.

RE